Asus P5LD2 Front Panel Connections

Hey guys and girls

I just bought and installed an Asus P5LD2 motherboard.

For the life of me I can't figure out how to connect the front audio connectors on my case. The case connections and worded differently from the motherboard ones and the motherboard instuctions are not the best.

Actually, the diagram at the bottom of Page 2-29 of your manual shows a fairly clear diagram of the pinout of the connections on the motherboard. Unless your case has an HD Audio connector (unlikely) then you should use the AC97 pinouts shown on the right side of the diagram.

With those pinouts, you simply have to match them up with the available connections on your case --> and these vary a lot by case. But the connections are straightforward: Line Out for L & R channels, Ground, Microphone and Microphone Power. Simply match those up with the case connectors. Note: the case may have a connector that matches the AC97 pinout or not ... if not, you'll have to remove the individual pins and simply match them to those on the motherboard.

hey guys, I know it seems so simple , and I have tried all that but my headphones still didn't work. I went into the bios and changed my front panel output from HD to ac 97 like the manual says but still no joy.

On my last mother board, which was an Asus as well, it had it all hooked up and working fine. although it was strange becasue to get the returns to work from the headphones I had to plug them on to totally unmarked pins (not marked in the motherboard manual and not marked on the board, but the this line of pins was sitting directly below the AC '97 pins) and the other reason I got onto that was some guy was confused like me.

Anyways, this board doesn't seem to even have returns from the ear phones?

Thanks PCBONEZ - last night I had some mild success when trying different pins. I hooked the Ear L and Ear R to the Line outs on the board and it was strange - to get the headphones to work I had to unplug the main speakers from the back and upon doing that the headphones would start to work. then I could plug the main speakers back in and they would both work! So at that point the headphones would only go if I unplugged the main speakers which really in a way defeats the whole ease and purpose of the front speaker jack.

So after this I found a setting in my soundcard software (sorry I forgot the name of the software and i'm at work so won't be able to post the name etc till I get home) the setting said something like 'turn off automatic detection of front panel speakers connected' - so I turned that off and upon doing that, now both the back speaker jack and the front work together at all times. This is good, this is making progress and I could live with this because all I would have to do is simply turn off the main speakers when I want to use my headphones.
But I would like to have it set up so that when I plug in the earphones the main speakers mute - that would be great.

So I shall try your connection suggestion when I get home and let you know how it goes.
Thanks!